The measure would do considerable harm to state government and little good elsewhere

This is an easy call: Oregon voters should reject the proposal to permit taxpayers to deduct from their Oregon tax payments the full amount of the taxes they pay to the federal government. The measure would benefit just a handful of high-income taxpayers while dealing a devastating blow to the state's general fund at a time the economy is staggering.

This is the same measure that Oregon voters rejected in 2000, the first time tax activist Bill Sizemore got it on the ballot. Yet, partly as a result of that effort, the state did raise the limit on how much taxpayers could deduct on their state taxes, from $3,000 to $5,000. Today it stands at $5,600. In that sense, both sides could claim victory after the earlier initiative campaign.

Nothing fundamental has changed since then, except that the U.S. economy is in a devilish predicament, millions of homeowners are falling behind on their mortgages, unemployment has risen and it's harder and harder to pay for health insurance, medical care or private education. Yet the very state-funded services on which low- and middle-income Oregon taxpayers most rely -- public education and public health care and coverage -- would be damaged by the passage of this year's Measure 59.

How damaged? The Oregon Legislative Revenue Office studied the measure and estimated that the state general fund would suffer a cut of about $1.1 billion -- about 7.5 percent -- over the next biennium and $1.9 billion and $2.2 billion in the bienniums that follow. Other estimates are higher.

At the same time, if Measure 59 passed, it would provide scant relief to any household earning less than $100,000 but considerable relief to those earning more than $200,000.

Here's an interesting fact for voters who still are pondering: Of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 41 have some form of income tax. Of those, eight allow some deductibility of federal taxes, and of those, only three allow full deductibility. Oregon and four other states allow limited deductibility.

There's been no hue and cry for this measure, which would create considerable mischief in the state budget. Voters should reject it again.